A Word In Edgewise: Down-Home Demographics

I’d seldom pondered the word “demographic.” Its definition is stored within some cerebral wrinkle as, “The study of human units in order to pinpoint how many things specific clusters can be finagled into buying the product; needed, and, more specifically, not,” further utilizing the numbers to make the “Nots” become “Must-haves,” at any expense. The effort seemed, on the surface, if not noble, at least a profitable realm of endeavor, given its obvious success.

Consider the range of items folks have been driven to desire: the basic Pet Rock (don’t just bend over, select, take home, but Buy!); Beanie Babies, Cabbage Patch dolls, bell-bottom trousers-cum-platform shoes and on to today’s driverless cars — tens of thousands lavished to own a design aping metal receptacles serving Michigan’s Big House’s halftime diners’ refuse.

In my feckless youth — for full disclosure — I succumbed to bell-bottoms. A cherished photo captured me observing the Dalai Lama autographing a photo I’d taken of him earlier at Sanders Theatre. His Holiness is swathed in robes, seated, putting pen to photograph. I, in (red, plaid) bell-bottoms, lean forward, flanked by security on either side, to accept. A thrilling instant, which, throughout the passing decades, I’ve been thankful was captured in forgiving black-and-white.

Over those same decades, my personal spending lusts have remained low-key, centered mainly on books (used) and writing instruments from JetPen’s bottomless well. I drove for some 70 years, purchasing a scant six cars, well below the Duesenberg demographic.

So why, starting some months back, was I being targeted online with, “Could you retire comfortably on a million dollars?” Well, sure, I thought, with a million, I wouldn’t need a job in the first place, but that’s a moot point — who can afford to retire? “Demographics” surfaced fleetingly and was gone. A briefer time passed, and the ante upped: “Could you retire comfortably on 1.5M?” and recently, following an even briefer pause, soared to “… comfortably on 2.5 Million?”

Fascinated, “demographics” became personal. Are these simply digital queries, broadcast indiscriminately like dandelion fluff or SARS-CoV-2 virus? Are they sown to insinuate hope — or doubt, or envy — onto the screens of folks just scraping by day-to-day, or scattershot on general sites like Facebook, to strike the eye of every possible viewer?

Have I — we — been reduced to human “catch,” like the creatures ocean trawlers engulf, scooping everything, harvesting the marketable and trashing the unwanted? Have I value in the demographer’s eye, or am I bycatch, another spurned Bluenose lizard fish or Flying gurnard?

Perhaps, considering a darker level of the demographer’s market-driven quest, there’s an awareness that as the “good fish” are consumed, other, lesser game — like the once-trashed redfish — must be promoted to “edible.” Am I, and others viewing the retirement question from our financial shallows, being inscribed on a “Next” product list as buffers against the current, lucrative consumer crop being fished dry? One doesn’t require tinfoil chapeaux to entertain that possibility.

I may be, as some have suggested, baleful, refusing to look at the bright side, while those ads (I’ve yet to open one) are in fact benefices, offering to seed respondents with baskets of cash! Of course! Why hadn’t I considered that! Windfall I’ll be able to bank together with those tariff-dividend checks being sent so faithfully! I feel better, already! I’ll go back to my reading and pen collecting, keeping an eye out for the mailbox’s red flag.

In the meantime, Buddy, can you spare a dime?